Actor Shia LeBeouf arrested after outburst in Broadway theater

Actor Shia LeBeouf arrested after outburst in Broadway theater

(CNN) — Actor Shia LeBeouf has literally made an art of apologizing for a chain of ill deeds. He added a link to that chain late Thursday, when police said he lit up a cigarette in a Broadway theater.

The “Transformers” actor was led away in handcuffs from a showing of “Cabaret” at a theater at New York’s Studio 54. He was drunk and had been disruptive in the theater, police said.

He had been sitting in the audience, CNN affiliate WABC reported, when he allegedly disrupted the show during the first act. He was arrested and charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, due to his reported disruptive behavior and obscene language, said police spokesman Brian Sessa.

They are holding him overnight at a police precinct, and he’ll likely see a judge in the morning.

Two women in the audience thought that his outburst was an act, they told WABC.

“He was brilliant,” one said. “I thought he was working on a role or something.”

His alleged belligerence may have all been an act, just like the next apology the public can expect from him for them.

He was also dressed for the role during Friday’s outburst, the two theatergoers said. He staggered around in a torn shirt with the cigarette and was mixing with the crowd. He walked up to a woman at the theater bar, fed her a strawberry by hand and tipped the bartender, they said.

LaBeouf rose to fame at age 14 as the star of the Disney series “Even Stevens.” He has stayed busy with regular movie and TV roles since the late 1980s, including starring in three “Transformers” films. Of late, he has played in films with a more literary appeal, such as “Nymphomaniac” and “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.”